Northeast Ohio cities dealing with rock salt shortage during peak of winter season

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio (WOIO) – Cleveland Heights and University Heights join other communities in Ohio and nationwide in working to combat winter weather amid a salt shortage.

Normally, a huge salt dome would be packed with mounds of road salt, but instead, they’re nearly empty, and local communities are forced to get creative because rock salt is in high demand but extremely short supply.

Dennis Pitts has been a plow driver for University Heights for 21 years and says they can only work with what they have.

“We do sensible salting, which is the main streets, intersections, and hills,” Pitts said.

Early winter brings heavy snowfall

Northeast Ohio’s winter got an early start, and this year’s snowfall has been unusually heavy.

University Heights’ salt garage appears nearly empty, and even though they have their order in to Cargill Salt Group for more rock salt, they have no idea when it will be delivered.

“When this is usually full, it’s like 250 tons — but we also get our salt from Cleveland Heights. They’re limiting everybody. All of the cities and ODOT are getting their salt — just depends on how long it takes to get here,” Pitts said.

Communities borrowing salt to meet needs

In a post to social media, Cleveland Heights said while neighboring University Heights borrowed some de-icing salt from them, they also had to borrow 150 tons of salt from another city to cover their needs for the next few days.

In many cases, it’s the side streets that could suffer the most. A full-time Lyft driver says she’s not salty about it, but tells me it has made navigating the roads difficult.

“It was actually harder for me to even maneuver and get out of people’s driveways because the roads were just so packed.

“We haven’t had that bad a winter for years in Cleveland, so that might have been a reason too,” she said.

Supply chain issues compound shortage

One road salt supplier in New York says that, along with high demand for de-icing salt, there are supply chain issues, labor issues, and mine production problems, such as flooding.

“Do you get a lot of calls about residential streets — people upset? You will. But nothing you can do,” Pitts said.

Snow plow drivers just ask one thing of their customers — don’t get frosty, “Be patient. That’s all you can do,” Pitts said.

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